Christmas in Raja Ampat

There are colder ways to spend Christmas, and there are busier ones. In Raja Ampat, the holidays bring the calm sea of the northwest monsoon, water warm enough to swim before breakfast, and manta rays gathering at the cleaning stations of the Dampier Strait. For a family, or a group of friends who have been promising each other this trip for years, there are few better places to be on the 25th of December.

Why December

Raja Ampat's main season runs roughly from October to April, when the seas settle and the diving is at its best. The weeks around Christmas sit in the heart of it.

The mantas come first. The monsoon brings nutrient-rich water and plankton blooms, the blooms bring reef mantas to cleaning stations like Manta Sandy and Manta Ridge, and the season for them builds through December into February.

The rain is honest but kind. December and January can bring the heaviest rain of the season, usually in short bursts, rarely whole grey days. Here the sea, not the sky, decides the day, and the sea is at its calmest.

And Christmas is real here. Most of the villages of northern and central Raja Ampat are Papuan and Christian, most of them Protestant, and Christmas is the high point of their year. Arborek, the small island village beside Manta Sandy, is one of them. Visitors who come ashore over the holidays may find a decorated village, a church full of singing, and a warm welcome. Our crews know which communities welcome guests and when. The south, around Misool, has a stronger Muslim presence, and a good crew plans the shore days with that in mind.

Christmas on Board

Every yacht does the holidays a little differently, but the shape is often the same. Christmas Eve is dinner on deck, or on a beach the crew has chosen that afternoon. Christmas morning is in the water, then a long lunch. The trimmings are a tree that has come a very long way, and gifts the crew has quietly helped to hide. And New Year's Eve is a beach fire, a sky with no light pollution, and the year ending somewhere almost no one else on earth is.

For children, there is no better place to learn to snorkel than the sheltered reefs of the Dampier Strait. There is also no better Christmas present than a first manta.

Which Yachts

Several of the yachts in our fleet spend the northern winter in Raja Ampat, from heritage sailing ships to large modern phinisi built for families: Silolona and Si Datu Bua, Celestia, Vela, Dunia Baru in the weeks she is not in Palau, and Lamima, the largest phinisi afloat. Which one is right depends on the size of your group, how much diving you want, the ages of the children, and the cabins you need. That is the conversation we have first.

Planning the Holidays

The weeks around Christmas and New Year are the most requested of the year, and the yachts that suit families are often committed a year or more ahead. For Christmas, the planning conversation usually starts in the first half of the year before, and for the very largest groups, earlier still.

Many yachts set longer minimum charters over the holidays, and some apply a holiday supplement. We set these out in every proposal. Raja Ampat charters begin in Sorong, in West Papua, reached by domestic flights through Jakarta, Makassar or Manado, and over the holidays these flights fill early too. Local boats and ferries can be unreliable on Christmas Day itself, so we time embarkation around it.

Some families split the holiday: Christmas at sea and New Year on land, or the reverse, with a few nights in Bali at an Aman resort or a private estate on either side.

A Different Kind of Christmas

The holidays at home are about tradition. A Christmas in Raja Ampat becomes one: the year the family swam with mantas, the singing in a village church, the beach where the children found a turtle on Christmas morning. For many of our guests it is the trip they talk about for years afterward.

The season is short and the family yachts go first. Tell us your dates and the ages of the children, and we will tell you plainly what is still open, this Christmas and the next.